How the Gay-Rights Movement Won - The Amerin Prospect

Contents:

• GLOBAL REGNN OF HUMAN RIGHTS FOR LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR PEOPLE
• HOW THE GAY-RIGHTS MOVEMENT WON
• GAY RIGHTS
• FROM GAY LIBERATN TO MARRIAGE EQUALY
• THE STONEWALL RTS DIDN’T START THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

GLOBAL REGNN OF HUMAN RIGHTS FOR LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR PEOPLE

For example, the Internatnal Gay and Lbian Human Rights Commissn (IGLHRC) has existed for the past 16 years to secure the full enjoyment of the human rights of LGBT people and muni subject to discrimatn or abe on the basis of sexual orientatn or exprsn, genr inty or exprsn, and/or HIV stat. ”44 The UN Human Rights Commtee, which monors pliance wh the Internatnal Covenant on Civil and Polil Rights, found that laws punishg adult nsensual homosexual acts vlate the Covenant’s guarante of nondiscrimatn and privacy and held that discrimatn on the basis of sexual orientatn is prohibed unr Articl 2 and 26 of the Covenant.

” She next talked about the nstant fear experienced by LGBT people, “… fear of the police and officials wh the power to arrt and ta simply bee of our sexual orientatn … fear that our fai will disown … [that we will be] forced out of [our] fay hom … wh nowhere else to go, and th bee homels, have no food, and rort to sex work orr to survive … fear wh our muni, where we face nstant harassment and vlence om neighbors and others [while the] … homophobic attacks go unpunished by thori. ”Then Eddy spoke about the nnectn between the nial of LGBT existence and the risk of HIV transmissn: “Acrdg to a recent rearch study published December 2003 by the Sierra Leone Lbian and Gay Associatn llaboratn wh Health Way Sierra Leone, 90% of men who have sex wh men also have sex wh women, eher their wiv or girliends.

Kg stated at the 2000 annual nference of the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force, “Freedom om discrimatn based on sexual orientatn is surely a fundamental human right any great mocracy, as much as eedom om racial, relig, genr, or ethnic discrimatn.

HOW THE GAY-RIGHTS MOVEMENT WON

“We pos that this is bee the Inter facilat workg and people-to-people munitn, which turn n brg about shifts societal views as people learn that people who are close to them may be gay, ” says Jenifer Whten Woodrg, a polil scientist at the Universy of Massachetts, Lowell, who helped nduct the study. In their book, Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attus about LGBT Rights, rearchers Brian Harrison and Melissa Michelson offered their own mol for how public acceptance towards homosexualy has advanced so quickly—one that emphasiz -group learship om people like Portman. They found that “relig participants exposed to the quotatn attributed to Reverend Lawrence were more likely to say that they supported marriage equaly, more likely to say that they would likely vote for a ballot measure their state tablishg marriage equaly, and more likely to approve of gay and lbian parentg.

However, throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly om the 1870s to today), lears and anizers stggled to addrs the very different ncerns and inty issu of gay men, women intifyg as lbians, and others intifyg as genr variant or nonbary. Such eyewns acunts the era before other media were of urse riddled wh the bias of the (often) Wtern or Whe observer, and add to beliefs that homosexual practic were other, foreign, savage, a medil issue, or evince of a lower racial hierarchy.

GAY RIGHTS

Biblil terpretatn ma illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female drs, and sensatnalized public trials warned agast “viants” but also ma such martyrs and hero popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chillg origs of the word “faggot” clu a stick of wood ed public burngs of gay men. The era of sexology studi is where we first see a small, privileged clter of medil thori beg promotg a limed tolerance of those born “vert.” In Wtern history, we fd ltle formal study of what was later lled homosexualy before the 19th century, beyond medil texts intifyg women wh large cloris as “tribas” and severe punishment s for male homosexual acts. The wrgs gradually trickled down to a cur public through magaz and prentatns, reachg men and women sperate to learn more about those like themselv, cludg some like English wrer Radclyffe Hall who willgly accepted the ia of beg a “ngenal vert.” German rearcher Magn Hirschfeld went on to gather a broar range of rmatn by foundg Berl’s Instute for Sexual Science, Europe’s bt library archive of materials on gay cultural history.

The blu mic of Ain-Amerin women showsed varieti of lbian sire, stggle, and humor; the performanc, along wh male and female drag stars, troduced a gay unrworld to straight patrons durg Prohibn’s fiance of race and sex s speakeasy clubs. This creasg awarens of an existg and vulnerable populatn, upled wh Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vtigatn of homosexuals holdg ernment jobs durg the early 1950s outraged wrers and feral employe whose own liv were shown to be send-class unr the law, cludg Frank Kameny, Barbara Gtgs, Allen Gsberg, and Harry Hay.

FROM GAY LIBERATN TO MARRIAGE EQUALY

Fstrated wh the male learship of most gay liberatn groups, lbians fluenced by the femist movement of the 1970s formed their own llectiv, rerd labels, mic ftivals, newspapers, bookstor, and publishg ho, and lled for lbian rights mastream femist groups like the Natnal Organizatn for Women.

The creasg expansn of a global LGBT rights movement suffered a setback durg the 1980s, as the gay male muny was cimated by the Aids epimic, mands for passn and medil fundg led to renewed alns between men and women as well as angry street theatre by groups like Aids Coaln to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and Queer Natn.

THE STONEWALL RTS DIDN’T START THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

In the same era, one wg of the polil gay movement lled for an end to ary expulsn of gay, lbian, and bisexual soldiers, wh the high-profile se of Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer publicized through a ma-for-televisn movie, “Servg Silence.” In spe of the patrtism and service of gay men and lbians uniform, the unfortable and unjt promise “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” emerged as an alternative to s of ary wch hunts and dishonorable discharg. Wh greater media attentn to gay and lbian civil rights the 1990s, trans and tersex voic began to ga space through works such as Kate Boernste’s “Genr Outlaw” (1994) and “My Genr Workbook” (1998), Ann Fsto-Sterlg’s “Myths of Genr” (1992) and Llie Feberg’s “Transgenr Warrrs” (1998), enhancg shifts women’s and genr studi to bee more clive of transgenr and nonbary inti.

The term “homosexualy, ” while sometim nsired anachronistic the current era, is the most applible and easily translatable term to e when askg this qutn across societi and languag and has been ed other cross-natnal studi, cludg the World Valu Survey. And Poland, supporters of the erng PiS (Law and Jtice), which has explicly targeted gay rights as anathema to tradnal Polish valu, are 23 percentage pots ls likely to say that homosexualy should be accepted by society than those who do not support the erng party.

But even untri like France and Germany where acceptance of homosexualy is high, there are differenc between supporters and non-supporters of key right-wg populist parti such as Natnal Rally France and Alternative for Germany (AfD).